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14 Dec 2017 1:15:15pm

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As someone who is quite active in the trans* community and whose partner is a trans woman I actually think this episode was quite sloppy.

Saying someone is "born male and now lives as a woman" or "born female and now lives as a man" is offensive. People are assigned gender at birth. Saying the phrase "assigned male at birth but is a woman" is the appropriate terminology - it more accurately (and sensitively) describes the situation. Both Julie and Craig offered this phrase and Dr Harte was the only cis person who used it.

I did not once hear the word Cis or Cisgender - and anyone who is learning about trans identities and how to talk about trans issues NEEDS to learn the word cisgender! It was a huge oversight for All in The Mind to exclude it. Also there was no explanation about the differences and isolated identities of sex, gender, gender roles and sexuality.

There were so many bad choices in the focus of the program. It is already a long standing trope that cis people are only interested in "the surgery". We did not need to hear about Julie's genitals. We never hear about anyone else's genitals on this program, so why is it suddenly appropriate to talk about them now? Trans people's genitals are nobodies business but their own. Calling it "the surgery" is a faux pas - there isn't one surgery and not all trans people have surgeries as part of completing their transition. We also did not need before and after photos - it does nothing but continue the long standing "othering" of trans people's lives.

Lynne actually said "You look like a man" to Craig - seriously? You would never say this to a cis person! It's SO RUDE!!

I would have loved to hear more from Dr Harte about the barriers to access to medical care for trans* people. Why was his clinic shut down and what were the political reasons and sociological implications behind it? I would have loved to hear more about that 1-2% of people who regret transitioning and how it informs the psychiatric consensus on gatekeeping of who is "trans enough" to get treatment for their dysphoria.

Overall I am very disappointed in this program. It only served to quench the thirst of morbidly curious cis people and did little to humanize and normalize gender variance.

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